Warren Watch: Bite into this, Mr. Buffett

By Steve Jordon
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER 
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Nutritional dentist (yes, there are such) Gregg Schneider of Linden, N.J., is nothing if not true to his profession.

When he realized that Warren Buffett seemingly exists on peanut brittle, soda, hamburgers, steak, ice cream and hash browns, he knew what he had to do.

“These are not the doctor’s prescriptions for a long and healthy life,” he wrote to Buffett, encouraging him to choose healthy food and take nutritional supplements.

Buffett wrote back:
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“My diet, though far from standard, is somewhat better than usually portrayed. I have a wonderful doctor who nudges me in your direction every time I see him.

“All in all, I’ve enjoyed remarkably good health — largely because of genes, of course — but also, I think, because I enjoy life so much every day.”

Buffett invited Schneider to the annual meeting of shareholders in Berkshire Hathaway Inc. held in Omaha each spring.

Schneider said he will display the letter in his office as evidence of his medical outreach.

He recommends that his patients eat less fat and take multivitamins, especially vitamin D, and uses vitamins and supplements to treat oral diseases. He’s a Berkshire shareholder but has yet to attend a shareholders meeting.

“I think I may go next year,” he said.

Buffett jokes about the healthy attributes of hamburgers and recommends T-bone steaks with a double order of hash browns at Gorat’s Steak House in Omaha. He joins visiting college students in topping off lunch with a root beer float at Piccolo Pete’s and is known to grab the occasional Bronco’s burger.

His food comments also help sell products for Berkshire companies, including Coca-Cola, Dairy Queen and See’s candy. During the question-and-answer session at the annual meeting, he and Berkshire Vice Chairman Charlie Munger usually have cans of Coke and bowls of candy in front of them.

But Buffett in 2005 began regular workouts with a personal trainer and, since his 2006 marriage, appears to have trimmed down. “Astrid’s taking good care of me,” he told biographer Alice Schroeder.

Power point

Buffett’s opinion piece in the New York Times last week was a classic example of his use of strong language to make an argument.

Buffett wrote that he supported recent government spending to prevent the nation’s financial system from collapsing but warned that the government must act to head off other problems, including runaway inflation.

Among his words and phrases: gusher, resoundingly, tumbling, ominous, staggering, uncharted territory, enormous, gigantic, mushrooming, force-feed, soaking, rumblings, emergency room, overtime, extraordinary, threaten, banana republic, immediate, flourishing, unchecked, melt, destiny, evil and destructive.

That sort of “common sense, hyperbolic language” fits Buffett, said Greg Zacharias, director of English graduate studies at Creighton University, because of his long history of writing and speaking plainly.

“He uses this kind of language, these kinds of examples, that are very powerful,” Zacharias said. “They’re very powerful in political circles and in the financial world, but they can also speak to regular people.”

That’s important if you’re trying to encourage such changes as raising taxes or cutting government spending.

“Those words function as metaphors and other poetic, nonliteral, terms that for most readers — expert or not — call attention to the situation’s size, energy, potential for crisis and injury, and thus to the importance of the piece and, along with that, of the writer of the piece,” Zacharias said.

Buffett has the ability to speak to many audiences at once without alienating any of them, a skill called “code-shifting,” Zacharias said. Former President Ronald Reagan had that skill, too, which helped gain public support for his governing policies.

If someone else used the same sort of language, Zacharias said, the arguments might appear artificial or exaggerated. But Buffett’s widely known speaking and writing style make the Times piece genuine and appropriate to him.

“Who he is and what he says work together,” Zacharias said. “Whether this strategy will work or not, I don’t know. It sure is an attention grabber from an expert communicator.”

Battery charged

BYD Inc., the Chinese electric car company that is 10 percent owned by Berkshire’s MidAmerican Energy Holdings division, landed a big contract to supply lithium-ion batteries to one of China’s largest automakers.

The Business Insider reported that the deal isn’t public yet, but according to thebeijing- news.com the automaker is likely Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. It would be the first original equipment contract for BYD’s battery division.

BYD also won subsidies for its plug-in F3Dm hybrid car of as much as $7,316 per car. Sales in China are due to start next month, BYD says.

Wind and sun

BYD’s connections with MidAmerian may include new types of batteries to store energy generated by wind and the sun, according to Oregon Business magazine.

Pat Reiten, president of Pacific Power, a part of MidAmerican’s PacifiCorp. division, met BYD officials in China during a trade mission with Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski.

Reiten said the battery collaboration is “potentially a game-changer,” letting utilities store electricity when the wind blows and the sun shines and then transmitting it later as needed.

Reiten said PacificCorp has succeeded by doing the simple things well: “Make investments that make sense. Run your business efficiently. Keep your costs down. Deal with regulators and legislators and governors with integrity. Do what you say, say what you mean.

“It’s a very straightforward, Midwestern ethic, but I think it works very well here in the Northwest, too.”

Last July, Reiten gave a presentation to Buffett and other executives on building 2,000 miles of transmission lines, for $6.1 billion, to extend from PacifiCorp’s wind energy farms in Wyoming into Utah, Idaho and Oregon.

PacifiCorp is asking state regulators for a 9.1 percent rate increase to help pay for the lines.

Geico expansion

Berkshire auto insurer Geico is expanding its service center near Buffalo, N.Y., and will add about 300 jobs there over the next three years, the Associated Press said.

Geico, based in Washington, D.C., already has 1,500 people in the Buffalo suburb of Amherst.